UPDATED: How Did Black Students Do On This Year’s ISTEP Tests? Find Out Here! Good News and Bad News

UPDATED WITH LINK TO STATE ISTEP DATABASE & REACTION OF STATE SUPT. DR. TONY BENNETT: African-American public school students in Indianapolis/Marion County continue to improve their performance in the annual ISTEP tests conducted for third through eighth graders in Indiana’s schools. The annual analysis of 2012 ISTEP data by Praise Indy.com and The Indianapolis Recorder reveals that 60.7% of African-American students passed their grade’s benchmark ISTEP English/Language Arts (ELA) exams while 62.0% of African-American students passed their grade’s ISTEP Math benchmarks. That’s just a fraction behind the Black Statewide ISTEP passing percentage of 61.0% of ELA; but ahead of the passing percentage of 60.0% for Math

In 2011, 58.3% of Black students in the city/county’s public schools passed ISTEP ELA and Math respectively. PraiseIndy.com and The Recorder analyzed Black ISTEP performance for every school corporation and charter school that had in both Indianapolis/Marion County and in the nine county suburban area. Criteria was corporations and charters that had at least fifty Black third through eighth graders taking the ISTEP tests mach in March.

Among the major findings: Black students in the Indianapolis Public Schools reported marginal progress in their ISTEP tests with 52.8% passing ELA and 55.1% passing Math. That’s substantially behind the statewide passing total for Blacks. But IPS’s Black ISTEP results are substantially ahead of 2011 when 50.8% passed ELA and 49.6% passed math.

Of the districts and charters analyzed, IPS was had the fifth lowest Black ISTEP passing in ELA and the seventh lowest in Math. Black students in Indianapolis’ charter schools fared better as 64.3% passed ELA and 63.4% passed math. Suburban districts and Indianapolis charter schools again led the list where African-American students excelled best in the 2012 ISTEP.

Another positive story of Black achievement in the 2012 ISTEP tests occurred at the Flanner House Charter School. In May, Flanner House was blasted by local media because their third graders had the lowest IRead test scores in the state. But those same third graders knocked it out of the park in ISTEP with 89.3% passing English/Language Arts, one of top results in Indiana. Overall Flanner House’s ISTEP results ranked them 16th best among Black students in ELA and 11th among Blacks in passing Math.

The Indianapolis Project School, a five year old Mayor sponsored charter school had the lowest Black passing percentage in the 2012 ISTEP of any Indianapolis area school district or charter. Only 32.6% of Black students at The Indianapolis Project School passed ISTEP ELA and just 25.0% passed Math. The schools poor ISTEP performance among Blacks has been going on for three straight years. Deputy Mayor for Education Jason Kloth refused to comment on The Indianapolis Project School’s poor ISTEP performance among African-Americans saying, “ISTEP is an important measure of student academic performance. However, it cannot be the only measure by which we as a community hold schools accountable. To determine how well Mayor-sponsored charter schools are performing academically, our office will consider proficiency on ISTEP+ in addition to other measures such as individual student growth, (and) the state’s A-F model”.

Several other charters are slightly above The Indianapolis Project School at the bottom for poorest Black ISTEP performance. In ELA, Imagine East (42.6%) and Imagine West (45.7%) continued their years of substandard performance by their Black students. Along with the new Hoosier Virtual Academy, the online charter school (51.5%). In Math, Hoosier Virtual Academy ranks near the bottom (38.5%) along with Andrew Academy (43.1%), the former St. Andrews/St. Rita School and the two Imagine Schools (East 43.1%/West 47.5%).

Our analysis also discovered strong disparities of Black academic performance on ISTEP between the township and IPS schools. In English/Language Arts at only one township school, Valley Mills Elementary in Decatur Township did Blacks scores lower than 40% passing (38.9%). In all other township schools more than half of Blacks in grades three through eight passed ISTEP ELA. Math was a tougher subject for Blacks as at six township schools, two each in Decatur, Lawrence and Perry townships, between 40% and 50% of Blacks passed. All other township schools had a majority or more of Blacks passing ISTEP Math.

In ELA, IPS had the schools with the lowest percentage of Blacks passing ISTEP ELA. Lowest was School 31 (24.4%), then Howe (25.0%), Arlington (26.7%), Emma Donnan (27.8%), Washington (28.4%) and Northwest (28.8%). In Math, The Project School had the lowest percentage of Blacks passing (25.0%), followed by these IPS schools- School 57 (31.3%), School 69 (32.2%), Key Learning Center (33.3%), Northwest (34.4%) and School 31 (35.0%).